Sunday, March 13, 2011

Screwjob! Alabama, Colorado, and Virginia Tech not invited to the NCAA tourney

If I wrote this an hour ago it probably would've been profanity laced... after a couple of hours I've calm down, but still am pissed at the exclusion. Essentially the committee told us and Colorado that our season was over in December. WHAT A CROCK!

I feel really bad for the players and coaching staffs of both Alabama and Colorado. Both had a nice conference run and finished strong. I also feel fro Virginia Tech a little bit, but they did lose at home to Boston College the very next game after beating Duke.

Next up is the NIT... while it's been a while since we have been in the postseason I'm going to have a hard time following it. We are a 1 seed vs Coastal Carolina. I hope we draw a decent crowd, but I doubt there will be more than 5000 fans.

I'll put up a free yahoo.com bracket link up in the next couple of days for those that want to compete and a prediction of the NCAA tournament.

6 comments:

I can live with us not getting in. We were squarely on the bubble, and you could make a strong case either way.

I'm happy for UAB and Mike Davis, and will be pulling for them (and I realize that may be an unpopular statement here), but there is no way in hell they should be in over us. Likewise for UGA getting in without even a play in game. I'm pretty sure anybody who watched Alabama, uab, VCU, and UGA this year would say Alabama is the best team of the 4.

That being said, Colorado, Virginia Tech, and St. Mary's have every bit as legitimate of a gripe as we do.

One way to look at it, we made history. First team from a major conference to win 12 conference games and get left out. Clearly the committee made the statement that RPI is more important than conference record.

We need to learn from this and figure out our playing rotation a little quicker in the season in the future. The games in the islands killed us.

Nevertheless, I'm proud of this team for making the post season for the first time in several years. We play Cliff Ellis' Coastal Carolina Chanticleers Tuesday night. They had a great run earlier in the year, but now only have 8 players thanks to a pending NCAA investigation (shocking). Let's protect our home court then go to New York and win the damned thing.

Bama fans need to support this team in the NIT. We need to show the selection committee that we DO care about basketball. If you listen to Finebaum and Jay Barker, it is obvious that they know little and care less about basketball. When the nation sees how that the Alabama media feels about basketball, they figure that everyone feels that way, so they go ahead and give us the shaft. All you could hear on the radio Friday was that four "thugs" from Auburn had gotten arrested. Nothing about Bama's comeback win over Georgia.

Is this Bama team on par with U Conn Pitt, Duke or even Florida? No, but they will get there. To think that UAB, Clemson or Penn State (14 losses)or Georgia (2 losses to Bama) deserve to be in over Bama is ridiculous. Coach Grant will win the SEC (both sides) and he will be a fixture in the "Big Dance". I just hope that we don't have to go 32 and 0 to get an invitation to the Dayton play in game. Roll Tide Roll

I'm disappointed we didn't make the cut, but I knew it was a possibility. Colorado, Virginia Tech and St. Mary's all have legitimate gripes.

Pure and simple, the committee got it wrong yesterday. Bama may not deserve to be in, but neither does UAB, Virginia Tech or, to a lesser extent, Georgia. I have heard no one (outside of hardcore UAB fans) provide a logical explanation of why UAB and VCU are in the field. Hell, I haven't heard anyone try to make a logical argument for the inclusion of those two teams.

Being a conspiracy theorist by nature, I can only deduce that there was a little bit of an agenda in selecting teams this year. For one thing, Dan Beebe, the Big 12 commissioner, was on the committee and, sure enough, Colorado - a team that is leaving the Big 12 - is denied a bid.

The majority of the committee was also made up of representatives from low to mid-major conferences. I feel they argued quite vehemently that if four at-large teams were going to play then it should be two BCS conference teams and two non-power schools. Normally I wouldn't care about that if the schools were deserving.

Finally, remember this past offseason when the NCAA wanted to expand the field to 96 teams. It was only fan and media response to the idiocy of the idea which finally made the NCAA capitulate and expand the field to only 68. However, because of the massive screw-up yesterday, now the NCAA can come back and tell us, "you see, more expansion is necessary so the Colorados and Virginia Techs don't get left out". Maybe, just maybe, the inclusion of UAB and VCU wasn't a mistake after all.